Turning single axis on and off

My machine is a small horizontal boring machine with three axis DC servos and lead screws, which I would like to change to ball screws.
If I want to operate the machine manually, I simply turn everything off using the red button in axis (F2), but with ball screws I would need to enable/disable single axis using let's say hardware buttons. Would this be possible?
Currently I am using AXIS 2.9.8 with 7i92.
 

I would be possible to disable an axis in hal,, the difficulty is returning to LinuxCNC control
without either generating a following error or a dangerous situation where you get a fast
uncontrolled return to the axis position before the axis was disabled.

What DC servos? Analog or step/dir like Gecko?

Thank you. I've already tried to increase ferror in the ini file to 200mm to deactivate following error completely. I can cut off the motor drivers power supply and turn the handle, but the axis travels back automatically when reactivated. Restarting the program every time is not an option, so I will probably end up building small encoder handwheels using HEDS encoder from Aliexpress. Do handwheels at least work in MDI mode, or do I need to change the tab every time I want to operate it manually?

I am using this kind of driver from Aliexpress:  de.aliexpress.com/item/1005009677397224.html
It's wired directly to the 7i92 and it drives small coreless motors with HEDS encoder, so the servo loop is done by the mesa card. No Geckos crawling in my machine.

Ul wrote:

...so the servo loop is done by the mesa card.

OK, see PCW's post up.
I think with normal step/drive controlled drives it can be done by disabling the drives as the loop is not closed in LinuxCNC, but i never actually tried it.

One way would be to have a hardware (or software) button that sequentially

• Un-homes the axis
• Resets the encoder to zero
• Disconnects the encoder from LCNC
• Then disables the drive 

Re-enabling it would be:

• Zero encoder
• Connect encoder to LCNC
• Enable drive
• Re-home axis/joint

This sequence should - I think - take care of the following error problem with no sudden servo movements to 'catch-up' to a massive following error.

LCNC is always disconnected/reconnected to an encoder at zero counts.

NOTE: this process would not be available while running gcode program.  i.e. no stopping in the middle of a program, manually jogging away, and then re-starting the program.